Pairing: Bella/Paul
Genre: Romance/Hurt & Comfort
Rating: M
Status: Complete
Words: 30,242
Last Updated: 2024/06/29
Author: cerealgoblin
Summary: Bella leaves for Italy to save Edward. On her way back she is re-evaluating who her real family is and who she trusts. How does Bella choosing the pack over the Cullens affect her future?
Cerealgoblin Notes: This is my first fan fiction. Please feel free to comment and give me good or bad feedback. I'm very open to criticism. I will read and cherish your comments!
BELLA
On the return flight home, Edward was cradling me as if I was the most breakable, delicate thing he'd ever possessed.
Possessed.
I felt like a possession. I felt like he owned me and so did the entire Voltori. They now owned my entire future. They saw a singular subjective vision of how I was to become a vampire, and ran with it. In one trip to Italy, my human future was stolen from me. What will I do now? What will I do when I get home? What will I tell Charlie about my absence? How can Jacob forgive me? How can Paul ever forgive me? Do I deserve forgiveness?
Paul.
I missed him so badly, that my chest ached for him. He had never made me feel like a possession. I remember when I hit him. It was the first day of spring break. When my hand slapped across his cheek because I was just so angry that he was calling me names, that he took my Jacob from me, but most of all because it felt as though he knew more than me. The cause and affect that one interaction caused. A spark lit between us the second our eyes met. It was an immediate attraction, and rage, unlike any I had ever known.
My hand flew out to strike him, though I was angrier at myself more than Paul. Staring into his eyes for the next few seconds rooted my feet to the ground. I could not move, could do nothing but watch him physically vibrate as the contours of his body seemed to shift and blur. Then the adoration I saw seeping from his eyes left me holding my breath, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Because I've never hit anyone before and something good couldn't be coming, and his shaking looked more like a seizure. Voices were booming but I just felt lightheaded and unable to make the voices into words or syllables in my head. And then he stopped. He could never hurt me. Yet when I left to save Edward, I couldn't imagine the pain I'd put him through. He's in pain right now. And it's my fault.
My fault.
At first Paul and I didn't quite get along. He had sprinted away from me at first. Right after he'd stopped shaking. My mind was reeling from the emotions I felt when I looked into his eyes and then he ran away faster than a human could ever run. It was like he was a vampire I'd thought. Then the wheels in my brain started slowly turning. And as I stared into the eyes of the men who stood before me, it all clicked. Their eyes were the wolves' eyes. The wolves who saved me from Laurent. "Wolves" I'd said. That was all I was able to get out, after I let out a breath I'd been holding, I collapsed and felt warm hands grab under my knees and my head, as distorted words were murmured and as I fell into blackness.
Since that moment, I'd found out about the pack and they'd protected me from Victoria. Paul had come back soon after running away. He wasn't present at Emily's when I told the pack about Victoria looking to find and kill me. But Paul had been at every pack meeting since and has been patrolling my house alongside the others. Jacob and I had finally got our friendship back. I quickly let my anger at Sam dissolve as though it never existed. And life was good.
It was nice being a part of the pack. So nice. I was always warm, not just from the constant hugs from the pack, but my stomach finally felt whole, and my wounds finally felt healed. Edwards' voice I'd hallucinated ceased to exist. I felt as though I was a part of the pack despite not being an imprinted member. They still always made me feel welcomed and like family. My family. And it was so much better than having just Renee and Charlie and Phil because I could actually tell the pack about my history with the Cullens, and James and Victoria without sounding like a mad person on their way to the psych ward. Being around the pack felt indefinite, unlike the Cullens who had abandoned me collectively, in the same instant one member no longer wanted me.
The pack made me feel alive again, despite being hunted. I'd felt the death sentence hanging over my head and the heads of those I loved, now including the pack, like a ticking time bomb. I was constantly worried for the pack but there were moments, when Sam, Jared and Embry would kiss the top of my head and make sure I ate and stopped me from tripping a gazillion times a day, always watching out for me like I was their younger sister. Emily and I began to cook lunch together when I was on the rez during spring break.
But it was Paul I got the closest to despite Jacob still being my best friend. Slowly Paul warmed up to me and stopped calling me leech lover. It was the small moments that brought me back to life. My food fights with Paul. Jacob and I rode our bikes together in the small hours he had off patrol. Swimming with the pack, Kim and Emily. They were pack too. Writing in my journal beside a happily sleeping Jacob. Paul tickling me on the couch until I had to catch my breath, during a movie night at Emily's. Weirdly, despite my and Jacob's long-held friendship, he was completely okay with me making room for Paul in my life. Paul had grown into one of my best friends almost surpassing Jacob in that role, with the amount of time Paul and I hung out together. With all the time Jacob spent sleeping after patrol and taking care of his dad, Paul and I were becoming close.
Paul.
While the pack was at Emily and Sam's two days ago, Jacob had said he wanted to uphold his promise and take me cliff diving. Paul who recently became quite protective of me. Paul who had bought me a helmet, and a leather biking jacket for when I ride my bike with Jacob so "i'd be safe" had suggested that he and I go together just because of his experience with diving. Jacob easily conceded and agreed that was safest. That was two days ago. After Paul and I went cliff diving one after another that afternoon, things quickly escalated.
The gaping hole I'd felt after Edward left had just started feeling less and less like a gaping hole, and more like a bad dream and then Alice arrived. I now felt like I was guilted into travelling to the Volturi with Alice after Jacob pleaded at my house for me to stay. I felt guilted and gutted over my actions. But knowing me, I could never not try to save someone if I had the ability. I had to save Edward because Alice said it was only me that could save him. But I knew Alice's visions were subjective and I knew that just like she's promised me she'd be in my life forever and then lied, I knew she was capable of lying to me.
So my leaving wasn't a choice because I couldn't be responsible for Edward's death. But if I left with Alice, I damn well knew that Jacob, Paul and the pack would see it as me choosing "the leeches" over them. I never even had the chance to say goodbye to Paul. Jacob saw me off while pleading for me to stay. Jacob was at my house to make sure I was safe and told me that Paul couldn't come back after returning me home after cliff diving because Paul was a liability. He had said that because of Paul's anger issues he couldn't be on couldn't control himself around a Cullen without breaking the treaty. But something about Jacob's words felt like a lie. Almost. And then I left.
My entire body was shaking on the plane, underneath Edward's cold, granite arms. I could see each convulsion rock through me. I could see my body shake. But I failed to feel it. Failed to feel my teeth chatter, or my body move, or feel my silent tears as the water dripped down my face. I just felt cold and alone. I've never felt more alone than I did right now. No. Not as bad. Not as bad, as being left in the forest. Worse.
I was just as cold as I was that night. Ice cold. From sitting beside my granite skin, freezing past lover. My body was shaking, my tears were slowly flowing and my mind was racing. It was worse than that evening after school when Edward abandoned me, because the day Alice told me Edward was in danger, off to commit suicide, because of me, she caused me to feel so guilty that I abandoned Paul. And Jacob. The entire pack. And now they could be in more danger than when I left. The Volturi. And were they even okay? Was Paul safe? Is Paul even alive? Has Victoria hurt anyone in the pack during my absence? My mind was racing, running on a circuit, repeating my fears and who I feared for. The pack. Paul. Jacob. Charlie. The Volturi. The pack. Paul. Jacob. Charlie. The Volturi. The pack. Paul. Jacob. Charlie.
From the point of view of another passenger on the plane, it would appear I was cradled in Edward's arms. Being hugged by my otherworldly beautiful lover, perhaps. As the young girl sitting beside him, with his arm over her shoulders, appeared to be having a panic attack. A fear of planes the other passengers who peered over every once in a while might be thinking. Or perhaps the oddly glamorous teenage boy and the messy-haired girl, with bags under her eyes, shaking, with silent tears running down her face. Perhaps the two were in a fight. Their thoughts could never be as imaginative, yet right, to concur that she had just left essentially the government of all vampires and pledged her soul to die. Just left the Volturi after promising the entirety of her life to immortality.
Her current panic attack would never appear to onlookers for what it was. Fear for herself, because she no longer wanted to become immortal. Fear for the humans who she saw being ushered into the belly of the beast to be drained of their blood and killed in the most horrible way. And lastly, the fear of what all of that means now that she is going home.
Home.
